For the time being posts from Discourse are being forwarded to the previously used ros-users@lists.ros.org mailing list to smooth the transition. For existing subscribers it is recommended to create an account on Discourse, customize your notifications, and unsubscribe from ros-users. Direct postings to ros-users will be disabled. For further details refer to the Discourse announcement.

ROS Answers

The place for questions and answers about ROS. ROS Answers provides a forum, which can be filtered by tags to make sure the relevant people are included and not overload everyone.

Special Interest Groups

Special Interest Groups - or SIGs - focus on specific subtopics, and help guide development efforts.

ROSCon

ROSCon is the annual ROS developers conference. It is a great opportunity to meet others in the community in real life. And even if you cannot attend we record the presentations. Visit roscon.ros.org to find out about upcoming events and browse the archives of all the past events.

Latest Distribution Releases

On the Distributions page, you will see a list of current and future ROS distribution pages. Planning notes for upcoming distributions will be on the relevant wiki page, e.g. Hydro Planning.

ROS Enhancement Proposals (REPs)

The REP process, closely modeled on Python's PEP process, allows the community to participate in the ongoing development of ROS. For more information, see the REPs page.

Repositories

To maximize community participation, we follow a federated repository model: rather than having one true place for all ROS packages, users and developers around the world can host their own repositories of ROS packages. You can setup your own public repository or use free hosting online.

GitHub

The ROS community has standardized repository location by suggesting that everyone use GitHub. The Open Source Robotics Foundation has switched to use GitHub as the primary hosting site. The ease of collaboration using the GitHub ecosystem has proven very effective. See Recommended Repository Usage.

GitHub Organizations

There are several GitHub organizations which host many of the core ROS packages. This is the primary location for submitting Issues/bugs, contributing patches and discussing issues directly with the developers. You are encouraged to fork projects and send pull requests as needed.

Historical Hosting Sites

Create Your Own ROS package Repository

There are hundreds of ROS repositories hosted by companies, universities, and individuals around the world. Whether you're releasing one ROS package or hundreds, feel free to start your own repository to share your code with the rest of the community.

Participating in Software Reviews

Design and peer review documentation for ROS packages are available online. On all package pages, e.g. actionlib, there is a link to 'Reviews' that will show you a list of any API or documentation reviews that have occurred. These review notes generally contain design goals and motivation as well.

The general process for a review is (this may be out of date: we generally use GitHub now):